Hands-On: Microsoft Office Finally Gets Serious About the Cloud

Microsoft has unveiled a new cloud- and tablet-ready Office suite. Here we see the new Microsoft Word. Photo: Peter McCollough/Wired

However unlikely it may seem, Microsoft just announced two new versions of Office, and the new builds aren’t pieces of inscrutable, soul-killing bloatware per the company’s productivity suite tradition. Believe it or not, Microsoft has finally made Office borderline cool.

Facing competition from Google Drive and Apple’s iWork/iCloud integration, Microsoft is stepping up its game, making real strides in an Office suite that everyone uses, but no one really enjoys. On Monday, Microsoft officially unveiled Office 2013 and Office 365. With the cloud at center stage and a refreshed design borrowed from the Windows 8 Metro interface, the new Microsoft Office is actually relevant — and enjoyable to use.

And that’s a good thing, considering Office’s role as a Microsoft cash cow.

Office sales made up $22.2 billion of Microsoft’s 2011 revenue, more than any other single Microsoft product, including Windows. But as more low-cost alternatives have become available, and the shift to cloud-based productivity continues, Microsoft has lost some of its dominance. Enter two new Office versions, which have a chance to legitimately compete in the new world order.

I spent a week with a loaner Samsung Series 7 tablet from Microsoft to test out the Customer Preview of the new Office. Here’s what you need to know.

Office 2013 versus Office 365

In the latest Office suite, Microsoft is introducing a subscription-based cloud service (and thus an entirely new business model). You’ll still be able to purchase the new Office 2013 in the same way you would with previous versions — by paying a one-time fee for the right to use Office forever on a single PC. But now there’s also a revamped Office 365 that you can pay for monthly.

Unlike the current web-based version of Office 365, the new version will allow you to purchase a subscription to the Office 2013 desktop applications as well. And if you buy Office 365, you’ll be able to download the desktop software onto multiple devices. For example, the consumer-facing Office 365 Home Premium lets you download Office on up to five PCs.

“It’s now your Office, not your machine’s Office,” Chris Pratley, General Manager of Microsoft Office Labs, Planning and Design, told Wired. “In the new world, you sign up for Office and your files and data and settings live in the cloud, and get synchronized with any device you own or any device you use, even if you borrow somebody’s device.”

With Office 365, you can sign in with a Microsoft Account at the top-right corner of the application, and it will sync everything from your account. Save your files to SkyDrive, and they will also sync across devices.

With Office 365, you’re signed into your Microsoft account, visible at the top right corner of applications. You can see recent documents from your SkyDrive, as seen above in the left column. Image: Microsoft

This is a drastic shift for Microsoft that makes Office more relevant in today’s multi-device world. You can start using Office on one PC, and pick up exactly where you left off on another PC — or mobile device, for that matter. While we weren’t able to test the new Office on a Windows Phone handset, Microsoft does say that you’ll be able to access your Office files across all devices, including smartphones, with Office 365. This could be a huge boost to Windows Phone adoption.

Another bonus to Office 365: Microsoft says you’ll get new features and updates pushed to the Office apps, as long as you have a subscription.

Pricing for Office 2013 and Office 365 hasn’t yet been announced. But if Microsoft wants people to adopt the new Office 365 subscription model, it will need to offer competitive pricing, especially considering Google Drive and iCloud are both initially free (albeit with fewer features and limited storage).

Desktop Apps With Metro Principles

All of the desktop apps have received a Metro-powered redesign. Now, these aren’t Metro apps. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook all remain desktop-only applications, but when you install Office 2013, tiles for each application appear on the Metro Start Screen. When you tap on one, it opens up in Windows 8 desktop mode. It’s a bit jarring to move from one mode to the other, but when the app opens, you can see how Microsoft is making Office fit into its Windows 8 Metro-based UI.

The Word app looks clean and fresh. It’s far less cluttered than its predecessors, and features the same chrome-less design that matches Metro apps. Overall, it’s much better looking than previous versions of Office. “We took the Metro principles to heart and really cleaned up on this to make all of the Chrome disappear. We try to make it as clean and authentically digital as we can,” Pratley said.

All of the Office applications now have a clean, Metro look. Image: Microsoft

And even though these apps are made for the desktop mode, they’re also tablet and touch-device ready. There’s a Touch Mode available on every app that enlarges the size of on-screen menu options and buttons, so you’ll be able to tap on exactly what you want. Using the apps in touch mode is definitely more difficult than with a mouse and keyboard, but the touch-based function does work in a pinch.

Apps

Both Office and SharePoint, Microsoft’s enterprise platform for managing shared documents, will now support third-party apps. Like apps for Windows 8, users will need to go into a separate app store to purchase and download these apps.

The Bing Maps app functions like a small browser within Outlook. Image: Microsoft

Pratley showed us the Bing Maps app for Outlook, and demoed how to plot an address on a map right inside the the mail client. Other examples include apps that pull out action items in e-mails, make restaurant reservations, dictionaries and more. “We’re working with a lot of third parties, as everybody would like to extend Office,” Pratley said.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to test out any Office apps, but this could be another large, untapped market for Microsoft if the platform proves successful.

Social

Social is woven into the latest Office suite applications, making sharing and collaborating on projects easier. You can connect social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and share your documents directly to friends or to those networks. For example, if you’re working on a spreadsheet in Excel, you can click the Share button and choose to embed a page from the spreadsheet to a social network.

Each app comes with new Share features, like inviting people to a spreadsheet or document. Image: Microsoft

You can also share documents and files with other users for live collaboration. Even if the other people don’t have Office, you can use the Present Online feature (available in Word, Excel and PowerPoint) to share a link that will allow people to access your doc in real time within a browser window.

Word

Besides the overarching changes in Microsoft Office 2013 and 365, each application got several more detailed updates. Word now has a full-screen Read Mode with zoom support, which is especially handy for touchscreen tablet users. You can also now add online photos and videos directly into documents. For example, you can add photos from Facebook and Flickr, and insert videos from YouTube. When you share that document with another person, he or she will be able to play the video directly within the Word doc.

The Track Changes feature has also been refreshed with something called Simple Markup. This feature lets you see what comments and changes people have made to a document, but in a much cleaner way than Track Changes’ current flurry of different colors, strikethroughs, and confusing notations. Comments appear as a text bubble icon on the right, and you can click on them to expand and reply to them.

When you play an online video embedded in Word, it opens an overlay for better video watching. Image: Microsoft

Finally, perhaps one of the most useful additions is a function called PDF reflow, which gives Word the ability to open and edit PDFs. I downloaded a PDF of a restaurant’s menu and Word was able to convert it to an editable document. The process was incredibly seamless. Even charts, lists and tables in PDFs can be converted and edited in Word.

Other new features include a Design tab with built-in templates, alignment guides that help you place objects and photos where you want, sharing capabilities like sharing with links, and more.

Excel

Excel is now a lot easier for people who aren’t spreadsheet- and chart-making pros. The application’s new Flash Fill feature recognizes patterns, and will offer auto-complete options for your data. For example, if you have a column of first names and a column of last names, and want to create a new column of initials, you’ll only need to type in the first few boxes before Excel recognizes what you’re doing and lets you press Enter to complete the rest of the column.

Excel can also now recommend a PivotTable and chart for your data tables with a Quick Analysis button. There are also more generic templates for things like a family budget, movie list, inventory list, and more. As someone who’s not exactly an Excel expert, all of these were more than welcome additions during my hands-on time.

Now Excel newbs can even make a decent-looking chart. Image: Microsoft

PowerPoint

PowerPoint received similar alignment guides as Word, as well as several other visually focused features like Eyedropper for selecting color and more. One of the most useful features is Presenter View. When a PC or tablet is connected to a projector, you’re able to see the upcoming slide and all of your notes related to a particular slide, while the audience only sees the slideshow.

Microsoft Office is clearly getting one of the most significant facelifts in Office 2013 and Office 365. All of the applications look a lot cleaner than before and are more intuitive to use. Microsoft has definitely done something right, but it will need to price its Office 365 subscription competitively. With so many Office users, Microsoft is in a position to become the leader in the cloud-based productivity space — but only time will tell if the company can make regular old consumers forget about Google Docs.